Jonathan Mostow Quotes

With my two brothers, Jean-Marie and Joel, I wrote a two-page story and wanted to make some kind of movie. We met a French production company, called Why Not?, and the first name we put on the list was Ken Loach. It was a dream for all of us. So, we tried and we met Ken and Paul Laverty, his writer, and they read the two pages and were inspired by that to do something. Paul had the freedom to do his own story - and he wrote his own story, which is better than the one we'd written.

Making a movie is difficult enough to sort of have a premeditated length that you're going for. I don't know a single filmmaker on the planet who does that.

I like to produce my own movies.

When you're a filmmaker or a scriptwriter, you face a lot of challenges while making a film. And when you produce it, you have to put in an extra effort.

I'm a filmmaker and I intend to continue making films of all kinds, in any manner, shape, or form - short or long.

As a director and filmmaker, I love creating my own opportunity, and getting to share the love, in that way, by creating other opportunities for people that I admire, so that they can do something in a way they haven't done it before.

I really enjoy talking to actors or filmmakers that enjoy that process of creating and how they go about doing it.

I learned that you have to say that you're a filmmaker. You're not a screenwriter; you're not a director for hire. You've got to take charge. You're a filmmaker, and you're going to make a film.

I have always believed that facilitating good, unusual content should be one of my prerogatives as someone who has spent half his life in cinema.

I think of all my movies as home movies! It's just that some are more expensive than others.

Filmmaking was the way I could write characters and not have to give them up to anybody.

I can make any film I want to make.

I make movies on the subjects that excite me.

People always said, "I can't believe you made a movie that had no script." Yeah, but here's the thing, if you've got actors who are used to that, and that's what they like to do, they're all good improvisers and they're all people that feel comfortable doing that, then you know, it's not that big of a deal. It's what you do.

As filmmakers, you're not working on just one project, you're producing something, directing something, shooting something, and so it becomes hard to do it by yourself.

Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read...if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

I know how to write. So I am not totally at the mercy of filmmakers, but it's not a bad point.

I'm not fixed in any genre. I love all kinds of films. The essential thing is; you have to have good material. If you have the filmmaker, and the material, and the script is good, you can start from there.

It's really just a freedom that we have with Amazon to push ourselves creatively. It allowed me to say, you know, okay this is going to be a little half-hour film here to start the season.

I hope to direct a few more films before I leave the planet, so I hope I can find the material.

At Pixar, I don't have to compromise at all. When I look at the finished "Toy Story 3," I don't sit and constantly think, oh, the actor was having a bad day, or oh, it rained and we couldn't use that set. The story that I wanted to tell is what is on screen, and I haven't had to compromise it one iota.

I think moviemakers are dramatists.

I talked with [ Blair Macon] a lot. I always like to come up with it - sometimes the filmmaker is not into it at all.

You can give the greatest performance possible, but if you don't have a director who's pointing the camera in the right direction and an editor who's editing it properly, it doesn't matter what you do. The director and the editor are the most important people. Not the actors. Sometimes the writer is important. But if you don't have a good director, you can't have a good production.